1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to textile fabrics, and more particularly to processes for the manufacture of textiles, and the resulting cloth which is characterized by its color effects, and its smooth silky surface and handle.
The principal field of this invention is in the manufacture of wide width sheeting. This cloth is manufactured commercially in very great quantity, and finds particular utility for furnishing fabrics, bed linen and table linen.
2. Discussion of Art
At the present time, blended basecloth which is conventionally used for wide width sheeting is woven uniformly from a warp and weft of completely blended polyester and cotton spun yarn. The blended yarn is usually treated, before or after weaving, with optical whites, to give the highest possible uniformity and enhancement of solid color when dyed.
The cloth woven in this manner can be dyed by the piece in a range of plain solid colors, or can be pigment printed, for which it is equally suited. It is kept cheaply in stock ready for color treatment in either of the above ways. After dyeing or printing, the cloth can be finished by a simple heat treatment. Massive quantities of 50/50 blend polyester/cotton are woven cheaply and used routinely and uniformly by mills throughout the United States of America.
The effect of shot silk is well known. This is an iridescent play of colors produced by weaving silk with differently colored warp and weft yarns. The apparently straightforward approach of dyeing the blended polyester/cotton yarns differently for the warp and weft and then weaving the cloth as required is prohibitive for economic reasons. The blended wide width sheeting industry is built on the economic necessity for long production runs to meet its wide distribution. Each mill makes a financial investment in the commercially accepted yarns, of which about 65% are blended polyester/cotton yarns, and about 35% are 100% cotton yarns, which are woven in the universally accepted basecloths at their accepted price points. This commodity cloth is held in stock as a general resource for either dyeing or printing, leaving the economic flexibility of being able to meet the end users specific needs/demands. Additionally, the traditional method by weaving to produce the shot silk effect would require mills to keep huge stock of different pre-dyed yarns to meet the different orders.